Finding Answers
by LainellaFay
Summary: One-shot. A girl thinks about her friendship with a certain gum loving tennis player.


The ebony haired girl rested her head on her hands. She blew the loose strand of hair that fell across her face. In front of her, sat a fiery red headed male. He was hunched over the table top, his pencil flew over the piece of paper, as he drew. The girl was bored. The male in front of her was concentrating too hard on his art piece and failed to notice the girl's mood.

She never had the eye for art, never did appreciate it. Yes, she could tell the difference between a good artist and a bad artist, but could never understand the meaning behind some of the most famous masterpieces. She couldn't understand why the male before her was so interested in such things. He was a good artist, she had to admit, but she never did understand what drove him to spend days, weeks, hell, even months on a piece of work. 'Weren't there more interesting things to do?' she always wondered.

Yet, she never left his side. No matter how uninterested she was, she never mentioned a word about it and stayed beside him in silence. She was worried. If she was to leave him, would she ever be able to stand by him again? That was her biggest fear.

They were friends, close friends some may say. However, the girl knew. She knew, that if they were to graduate and go their separate ways, they would lose contact with each other. They were those kind of friends, not best buddies, but the kind of friends whose bond would break once they leave school.

'Pop!', came the frequent sound of a bubble popping. The girl shifted in her seat. She had been sitting in the same position for hours. Her eyes moved to admire the features of the male in front of her. She always wondered why he loved to chew gum so much. She rarely ever saw him without seeing a bubble being blown from his mouth.

She thought about the things that she knew about the red head. She closed her eyes, sighing. She hardly knew anything about him. They were friends, just friends. They were first classmates, then seat mates, before ending up as friends. It was the typical kind of friendship you would find in schools. They weren't close enough to share secrets. She knew that he played tennis, loved to draw, and loved sweets. However, those were things that everyone else in school knows about. Tennis was popular in their school, especially the boys tennis club. They had the record of winning in the nationals for 2 years in a row. Fan girls constantly shrieked and gossiped about their favourite tennis regulars. The red head was one of them. One of the more popular ones, if the ebony haired girl had to admit. She sighed again.

Hearing her sigh, the red head lifted his head to look at the ebony haired girl, his violet eyes flickering with concern. The girl shook her head gently, before giving him a smile. Satisfied with her reaction, he smiled back and went back to his art work.

See? They didn't know each other well at all. He didn't realize that under that smile she made, held thoughts and feelings that she never revealed to him. He never noticed that she was thinking about him, even questioning their friendship. Her eyes wandered over the relaxed figure in front of her. It wasn't one-sided. She might not know much about him, but he as well, didn't know much about her. He didn't know about her lack of interest to his hobby. If he did, he probably wouldn't be sitting there and drawing in front of her without a care in the world.

She wanted to learn more about him, but was scared to pry. She was concerned about the boundary of their friendship. If she tried to go too far, their already vague friendship may crumble. 'Just being by his side is enough. I shouldn't get too greedy,' the girl firmly convinced herself in her mind.

"DONE!" Came a cry from the red head, as he jumped out from his seat and shoved the piece of paper right in front of the girl's face.

"Shh!" The librarian gave the boy a glare, reminding him to keep quiet as they were in a library.

The boy gave a sheepish look and he grabbed the ebony haired girl by the wrist, before pulling her out of the library.

"Shinota! Look! Isn't it wonderful? Aren't I a genius?"

The girl gave the drawing a sideward glance before nodding, "Yup, it's awesome Marui. Aren't all your drawings wonderful?"

Marui grinned, before exclaiming out, "Well, now that I'm done, let's go get something to eat! Ah, look! An ice-cream store."

She stared at the back of the boy who dashed off to the ice-cream store. She shook her head. There he was, going through everything at his own pace. She envied him for that. She envied him for being so carefree. It might have been something to do with her upbringing, or just simply her personality, but, she found it hard to express her true feelings so openly like that.

The ebony haired girl strolled off after him, before spotting a head full of white hair walking towards them. She frowned, watching the slouching figure that strolled towards the red head.

"Bunta…" he drawled, resting his arm on the red head's head.

"What do you want Haru?" Marui growled, shaking his arm off his head.

Niou Masaharu looked over to the direction of the ebony haired girl, who, at that moment, froze in mid-step. "You're still hanging out with that girl?" He asked, quite rudely at that.

"Yeah, what's wrong with that? She's my friend." Marui argued back.

Niou clicked his tongue, "Friends? My ass…"

The ebony haired girl by then, had reached them and glared at Niou. She never liked the white haired male, he was too scheming for his own good. The feelings were mutual though. She disliked him just as much as he disliked her. He knew about her lack of interest for art, he also knew about how she often lied about her own feelings.

For the ebony haired girl, she disliked him for knowing too much. She also disliked him for being closer to Marui than herself, but, it wasn't as if she could do anything about it. The two boys are teammates, both being regulars on the boys tennis club and are in the same class, they even shared the same hobbies. To the girl, that was the definition of close friendship.

Shinota knew that Marui continued being friends with her because it was convenient. Why, you may ask. The reasons were simply because they were classmates, which was good for any assignment that requires you to work in groups, and that she didn't fan girl over him. That was all, well, at least that's what Shinota thinks. Marui could have anyone he wanted, therefore, the ebony haired girl didn't want him to dislike her, putting up a façade and pretending that they shared the same interests and all. That was why the boy with the rat tail disliked her. He hated her for her façade, thinking that the relationship between the red head and the ebony haired girl was fake.

But…what can one do when they are afraid? The girl was afraid of taking action, afraid of speaking up, afraid of letting others know her true self. She created this identity which allowed her to blend into society, be one with the world. She disliked standing out, thinking that others would consider her to be weird.

She was contradicting herself. If she wanted to stay invisible, she wouldn't have continued to stay by the red head's side. The red head was always in the spotlight. In fact, he enjoyed being in the spotlight. Her being by his side had brought her completely into the light, she couldn't hide in the shadows of society anymore. She said that she disliked that kind of lifestyle, yet she envied it.

People are hard to understand. The ebony haired girl didn't even understand herself. Her eyes widened in realization. That must have been the reason why she didn't try to learn and understand the red head more. How could she understand someone else when she couldn't even understand herself?

She stopped in front of her house, uttering a tiny goodbye to the red head and the glaring white head. While she was lost in her thoughts, they had been walking home. She clutched the front gate with her right hand. She might not understand much about herself, however, she knew one thing. She liked the red head. She didn't know whether it was something romantic or just because she admired him, but that was the only way she could explain why she tried so hard not to get him to dislike her, and stuck by his side for the past 2 years.

She smiled, stepping into the silence of her house. She didn't need to know every single answer yet. All she could do was live her life and search for the answers along the way.


End file.
